QB coach Chris Palmer, 08.24.09

Q. (Coach) Tom (Coughlin) was saying that the pass protection of the offensive line made it difficult to judge the play of the quarterbacks. Do you side with Tom on that?

 A. Well, I’ll let Tom answer that, but it’s -- you can evaluate a quarterback on whether he is working trying to throw in the right direction and things like that. It’s a lot of factors that go into the evaluation of a quarterback, but that’s just part of it and we’ll evaluate them through the seven on sevens where there’s no line, then and things like that. The quarterback position we have to play better and get better as we go into the season.

Q. Andre Woodson’s performance has obviously been a lot better in practice than in the games. In the games, it seems like he’s running for his life at times. How do you evaluate how he has been doing? 

A. He’s like a different player this year. I mean, you know, one of the things that you probably didn’t notice is the play where he took and slid the back over, then he set the protection and got us into the right protection. For a young quarterback that is excellent and we’re encouraged by what we’ve seen of him. We’re also encouraged by what we see in (Rhett) Bomar. I mean Bomar’s got a quick release and, you know, as a quarterback coach you say, ‘Hey, I want to work with those two young guys because they’re very talented.’

Q. Tom has said he wasn’t super pleased with the second offensive line, how much did that actually affect Andre Woodson?

A. Well, sometimes you’ve got to play above the things that happen on the field. You know, you look for the quarterback position to make plays no matter what the circumstances are and that’s kind of what I’m looking for and I’ve been fortunate in my career to have a guy like Doug Flutie that could make things happen. Eli, early in the game, made some things happen. So, we expect the quarterbacks to play above the X’s and O’s and make plays.

Q. How is David Carr doing?

A. I’m not pleased with David right now. I think he’s got to be more consistent. He’s a quarterback, he’s got to prove he’s a winning quarterback and I think there are certain things that he has to improve on, and I’ve told him that. He has the ability to play in this league, he’s a very, very talented player, but he’s got to do the things the way we want them done.

Q. Last year when he played he did well, but things have been a little different this year.

A. Well it’s…every year is a new year, sometimes you break a horse, and sometimes he goes out to pasture and when he comes back in, you have to retrain him. So we’re in the process of retraining him right now.

Q. Is there one thing in particular you’ve been working with him on?

A. Running out of the pocket…yes, we’ve talked about that. Sometimes you have flashbacks and you want to stay in the pocket. I compare him very much to Steve Young. Steve Young was beat up in the USFL, as you know, beat up in Tampa Bay, and the coaches out in San Francisco took him, settled him down and he turned into a Hall of Famer. So I think sometimes you just have to be patient, and hopefully the person will understand what you’re trying to do with them.

Q. I mean, he’s not a kid. So, did you think a lot of the stuff that you guys tried to smooth out last year with David would have stayed smoothed out?

A. Well, I thought he played well last year. I thought coming into the Seattle game, where he played most of the fourth quarter, I thought he played well there. You kind of anticipate that because of the…coming out of training camp. To play as well he did in Minnesota, after being just a backup and only taking a few reps, I was very encouraged by that.